


and the lion fell in love with the lamb

by kittymills



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt, Headcanon, M/M, i have a lot of feelings about this pairing ok, lotor and matt, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-04-28 14:16:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14451039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittymills/pseuds/kittymills
Summary: There is a particular kind of suffering to be experienced when you love something greater than yourself. A tender sacrifice. Like the pained silence felt in the lost song of a mermaid; or the bent and broken feet of a dancing ballerina. It is in every considered step I am taking in the opposite direction of you.—  	Lang LeavORwhen the lion fell in love with the lamb





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my HC of how Matt rose through the ranks of the rebellion so quickly that he had to fake his own death.  
> Also there's a 99% chance that I will continue this, probably with smut, idk.
> 
> Starts at the time of Season 5, Episode 1.

* * *

 

 

“Don’t let him kill you.”

Lotor slides closer to the barrier on heavy feet.  On the other side, the human stared up at him, a furious worry on his face. Lotor tilts his head, schooling his expression into something calm. Something that will hide the way his heart beats so violently inside his chest.

“Your concern warms me, Matt.”

“Don’t.” Matt says again, angrily biting out the words. “Don’t let him kill you.”

 

* * *

 

**\--MANY MONTHS EARLIER--**

 

“He’s so small? Why is he so small? The champion wasn’t this small.”

Ezor peers at the human shape in the corner of the shuttle.  At least, she thinks it’s human. It’s huddled into a ball, spindly arms over it’s head and hiding it’s face and the sounds coming out of it makes her sensitive ears itch. 

She nudges it idly with her boot and it shrinks back further.

“Stop playing with it,” Zethrid snarls. She’s pissy that Acxa wouldn’t let her throw it out the airlock. What did they want with something so weak and pitiful anyway.  “Lotor told us it wasn’t to be harmed.”

“Aw,” Ezor huffs, eying it one last time. “We could play with it. Don’t need to harm it-“

“Do you really want to test Lotor’s patience on this, Ezor?” Acxa asks from her place at the controls.  “He’s chosen this one for himself.  Don’t get in his way.”

 

* * *

 

“Where is he?” Matt shrieks it loud enough that even his own ears hurt.  “Where’s my father? What have you done with him?” 

He thumps the cold walls with balled up fists but it’s weak.  His fists are bruised from days of railing. They’re sore. His voice is sore. His soul is sore.  He’s railing, but it’s at nothing.  Just the purple hued creature on the other side that should look galra enough to send fear striking deep into his heart but somehow… doesn’t. 

“He’s safe,” the half-galra says softly, a voice like cool honey. “You do not have to fear his fate.”

“No?” Matt almost sobs it out and he wants to hit out again but his fire abandons him.  He slides weakly to the floor.  His father is safe.  His father is safe.  This half-galra promises it. He doesn’t know if galra are like humans, their intentions easy to read in their eyes.  He imagines they can’t be, with those glowing yellow orbs that look vacant and piercing all at once.  But this one has eyes like something else.  Blue, and… was that pity? Something curls in the centre of his gut when those eyes look into his and he’s weak in a whole other way.

“What about my fate?” he whispers through cracked lips.  “What about mine?”

 

* * *

 

He’s the prince, Matt realises.  The goddamn prince Lotor of the galra empire, only child of the bloodthirsty Zarkon and… old. Older in years than any human could ever hope to comprehend.

But when he presents Matt with the artefact, his face is open and childlike, a wonderous enthusiasm in his eyes that reminds him so violently of his sister he’s almost doubled over from the pain.  Katie would be so grown up now. What did the garrison tell her had happened to them? Did she miss him. 

_Sorry, Katie.  I’m so sorry._

“You don’t approve?” Lotor says quietly and the twist of his lips that almost looks like a human smile slices somewhere into Matt’s chest.  It’s not quite like a humans, his teeth are sharp and those canines remind him at every instance that Lotor is a predator.  Not just his teeth, but the sheer size of him – dominating the entire space even if he hadn’t borne the regal stance of a creature that was owed the universe grovelling at his feet.

Matt struggles to come to grips with that.  He saw first hand the blood thirsty violence of the galra, he saw the way they pillaged entire words and sucked them dry of life.  He saw it.  He knew it, but then he turns to their prince and the hope waring with wariness in his blue eyes makes Matt feel like he’s tumbling untethered and uncontrollable in zero G. 

It’d happened in the shuttle once, on the way to Kerberos. He’d been half asleep and his tether didn’t latch like it was supposed to.  One push and he was tumbling dizzily and bumping into the sides helplessly until Shiro had dashed out to get him and tether him properly.  He’d been more scared than he had any right to be, all his understanding of how his world worked suddenly turned upside down and inside out even though he’d trained for it, he’d been prepared for it.  But it didn’t stop the heart stopping fear when he realised he was out of control and there was nothing he could do but to wait for someone to save him.

Thoughts of Shiro twist in his stomach as he handles the object.  He glances up, the prince stares at him gloomily, the twists of his lips an obvious frown now. His teeth are tucked away.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks, clutching the artefact hard enough that even his frail, human fingers make it crack ominously in the empty spaces around them.  It feels like his heart. 

A long, gloved hand looms near his cheek and he braces himself for the contact.  The harsh grip of a galra hand against his jaw to twist his face to inspect his human features. He’d not experienced it from Lotor yet and something traitorous inside him is saddened that Lotor is going to be like the rest.

But the touch is soft, gentle.  The drag of the strange material unlike anything from Earth along his skin.  It felt like the suit the prisoners had been shoved into when they were sent to fight in the arena, tough and impenetrable enough to withstand the vacuum of space, but soft enough to leak heat through the touch.  Were galra warm like humans? Or were they hotter?  Matt wants to hate himself for wanting to know.

Lotor slides his hand around his neck and Matt has to blink at the close-up vision of Lotor’s lavender hued skin.  It’s beautiful, he thinks. It has the smooth appearance of alabaster, fine and delicate but hard and hot and when Lotor leans forward, Matt can taste the sweetness on his breath that has him thinking of beautiful worlds he’ll never see shining in hues of pink and purple and then he’s melting into something he suddenly never wants to lose.

 

* * *

 

“I always wanted to be one of the first humans to meet aliens,” his human says softly against Lotor’s skin. “But I never expected it to be like this.”

Lotor strokes a long, pointed nail down his lover’s back.  He finds himself smiling at Matt’s words even as he watches the rise of deep red under the pale pink skin.  Soft, so soft these humans.  The champion had bled rivers in the arena, Ezor had told him and he’d gone to witness it for himself. The champion had bled more than any creature he’d ever seen.

It was… disturbing.

“I believe in this instance, _you_ are the alien,” he says and Matt rolls away.  Lotor misses his warm instantly.

“Let me go to him, Lotor,” Matt says it calmly but Lotor knows the request will soon turn into Matt’s impassioned imploring. He could, he knows this. He could let Matt go, his mind was sharp for a human, his father much the same but with many human years of experience behind it.  He could let him go to work with him and the rest of the prisoners, but it’s been years since he’s had this. It’s been decaphoebs.  It’s been _centuries._

And Lotor is selfish.

 

* * *

 

“You can’t keep him.”

Acxa has always been his voice of reason.  The one closest to him brave enough to show him the ugly truths.  Even in this, he wants to rip out her throat for daring to utter the words out loud, but he won’t.  She’s right. 

He can’t keep him.

Rumours of Voltron’s paladins being mere humans have permeated the Empire.  And humans are rare enough to be instantly recognizable.  And this human… _his_ human, was in danger.

Acxa gives him one last, long look before turning on her heel, walking past the human in question without even a sideways glance. She doesn’t respect him, she doesn’t care for him.  Matt knows this, but Lotor doesn’t care when Matt turns to him with those golden hued eyes filled with a hardness he knows is a front.  Axca wisely lets the door slide shut behind her, and he’s alone with his pet.

“She talks about me like I’m not in the room,” Matt says. It’s taken months for Lotor to learn the cadence of Matt’s voice.  The slight inflections in his words can mean so much more than the words themselves.  He wonders briefly if it’s a human trait, or simply that Matt is expressive enough not to be able to hide his emotions.  Lotor suspects it’s the latter when he hears the threads of worry through Matt’s words.

“Fear not, my love,” Lotor says. He steps forward and draws his human close, hungrily drinking in his scent even as his mind is already formulating a plan to keep him safe.  And he will.  Lotor has failed in many ways before in the long years of his life, but this…  This precious thing he will keep safe, even if it pains him to do so.

 

* * *

 

“No! Don’t- please, please don’t hurt me!”

The galra is bigger and uglier than any Matt has seen before and its fangs bar themselves horribly against the purple fur lining its cheeks. Gold eyes look vacant, even as they are filled with a bloodlust Matt couldn’t ever hope to reason with.  He’s just a human, a lowly, wretched human and he mentally tries to brace himself for the death he knows is coming when he’s hauled up by the scruff of his clothes and a sharp, lethal looking blade slices into the soft skin of his cheek. 

Blood runs down his chin and pools on his shirt.  “Please,” he whispers. It’s a broken plea.

“Pathetic,” the galra hisses and one flick of its vicious wrist sends him flying across the room.  He hits the wall with too much force not to sustain a trauma but he still senses him before he sees him.  Before he hears that beloved voice ring out his name and bones crunch sickeningly.

At least galra bones snap like human ones, he thinks as the darkness sweeps in.

 

* * *

 

Lotor cradles him, his tiny human weak and broken against his chest and something inside him he hasn’t felt in years threatens to claw its way up his throat. 

Axca was right.  He couldn’t keep him and he tries to smear away a streak of the vibrant red blood from Matt’s cheek as he curls over him. His hair drapes down, a silver shimmer to hide his face and his turmoil from his generals.

“Leave me,” he snarls out the words, and they shake with the fury inside him.

“Lotor,” Acxa’s warning is low and he has to swallow back his rage. 

“LEAVE ME!”

His generals scatter and he’s left alone with Matt.  The cut on his face continues to ooze blood and the scent of it stings his nose.  It’s bitter compared to the blood spilled by the empire.  It’s bitter like the taste on Lotor’s tongue as his royal heart threatens to crack under the weight of what he has to do.

But not yet. Not yet.  He holds him for a little bit longer before he acts.

 

* * *

 

“Why are you doing this?”

The tears in Matt’s eyes hurt almost as much as the deep cut on his cheek or the broken bone in his arm. They hurt because once again, everything he thought he knew about his world was being ripped apart and cast away.  He’s adrift again, not sure if he’s up or down or inside out.

And this time, there’s no one there to save him.

“Lotor, please,” he hates the way his voice hovers on a sob as he stumbles one pitiful step forward.  “Why are you doing this?”

Lotor looks at him with a coldness he never thought to see again and it stabs him in his carefully mended heart, unpicking at all the stitches that held it together after their abduction until he was once again in pieces and scattered across the galaxy.

“You have outlived your usefulness,” he says and Matt can’t reconcile the tone and the words with the prince in front of him.

“You don’t mean that,” he cries back but even he doubts it. Lotor looks cold, the consummate princeling ready to lay waste to a galaxy and for the first time in months, Matt feels a very real stab of fear.

Do galra feel love? Or do they only lust for more.

 

* * *

 

The nest is empty without him.  The cold seeps into more than just his heart.  It’s in his soul and he strains to push down the inevitable pain that flares unbidden in his chest.

It’s a sacrifice.  A sacrifice to keep Matt safe.

The shuttle is on autopilot, streaking its way through the stars away from the clutches of the empire, away from any who dare to hurt him.

Away from Lotor.

Tucked against the human’s shirt is the intel to ensure Matt’s survival and acceptance into the rebellion. The universe was changing. The tides of war were ebbing away from the galra as Voltron extended its long reach to scratch at his father’s empire.

Lotor couldn’t keep him, but he could save him.

 

* * *

 

 

Matt flails as his eyes open, blinking hard against the strange bird like alien that stands over him. Its features flare out in something that like be like feathers and it tilts its head to regard him. The shuttles engines drone dully in the background.

“Whoa, easy.  You’re safe now.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is set immediately after the Kral Zera and the lighting of the flame. I had some emotions I needed to get out.

The flame was lit.

Lotor moves down the corridors of the castleship, body stiff from the battle to secure his throne. He aches, both inside and out and his years weary soul feels every bit of his ten thousand years.

There is only one thing he craves, and it’s the one thing he cannot have.

The doors to his quarters slide close behind him and when he crosses the room on heavy feet and sinks onto the edge of the bed, he’s grateful that Allura and the paladins had seen fit to move him from the exposed cell in the ships bowels. Here, at least, he would be able to nurse his wounds in private and his new allies would be kept unaware of how much he was suffering.

It was even more important now to remain strong.

It hurts though. With each panel of his armour that he stiffly strips away, his body aches and twists with sharp pain so violent it makes his eyes water.  He grits his teeth so tightly that he breaks his own skin and a drip of dark purplish red blood lands on the back of his palm.

It hurts. And he’s alone… until he’s not.

Soft hands encircle his, small and finely boned over the wider expanse of his palms. Their tips are blunt, unlike the sharp claws of his own that he sports thanks to his galran heritage.  The touch isn’t hesitant. It’s familiar and strong and beloved. And something he never thought he’d feel again in his lifetime.

“You should think of a better code for your door if you’re going to rule the universe,” Matt says quietly. 

Lotor closes his eyes, even as his heart swells in his chest at the sound of that voice.

“Mathew,” he whispers. It’s almost a sob.

“Shh, I’ve got you,” Matt answers and before Lotor can wonder if perhaps Sendak had killed him, if this was his sad soul’s way of creating an afterlife, Matt has the bulk of his armour pulled away and those soft human hands are in his hair and stroking his cheek. “Lotor.”

The touch almost sends him over the edge, careering down into an abyss he’d been trying to fight for so long. He doesn’t want to fall. He doesn’t want to stare into that blackness and see all the pain reflecting back.

The rejection, the guilt, the horrors that haunt his dreams.  The countless voices crying out then struck down into silence because of his stupid childish pride. The shadow of his father was heavy on his back, a stain on his soul.

He didn’t want it to be that way. And Mathew. Darling Mathew who he’d plucked from his father’s arena as a mere curiosity, had shown him there was still a light inside him. He still had the ability to love.

Even when it hurt.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Lotor manages to say. He remembers the green paladin, her eyes, so much like Matt’s, sparking fire and rage. He doesn’t want her to look at him like that. He doesn’t want her to look at Matt that way and spit on the rare, precious affection Matt might have once held for him.

Matt moves away and Lotor almost whimpers at the loss. Almost. Until he remembers who he is, and he bites down his need. Bites so hard his lips start to bleed again.

Matt returns, a damp and balled up strip of material in his hands. He’s frowning and Lotor can’t look at him without seeing the scar. The scar on his cheek because Lotor had failed to protect him.

Had failed to protect the one thing precious enough to his heart.

The sting when Matt presses the rag to his cheek is nothing compared to the sting deep in his chest.

“You shouldn’t be alone,” Matt says. “You’re bleeding, you’re bruised. You could barely walk away from the black lion in the hangar.”  Matt pulls away the rag and presents it to him, the white of it now stained a dark reddish colour.  “Why not go to the cyrobay?”

Lotor tries and fails to laugh at that. It comes out as more as pained exhale. “And show more weakness. I cannot allow that.”

“Proud, stubborn prince,” Matt says it under his breath, but it’s said with an affection that reminds Lotor of the nights Matt would curl up beside him, pink and soft and eyes full of an excitement over the ancient artefacts Lotor would show him.  Eyes full of excitement, but not quite full enough to hide the sadness inside.

Lotor had become good at ignoring that sadness. He’d become adept at it, because it was easily to ignore it than face the guilt that it was within his power to free Matt’s father and send them both back home to earth.

The sting becomes more intense, and this time there is no question that it comes from the cavernous space inside his heart. And he realises he misses this. He misses Matt.  All the glory in the universe is pale in comparison to those pretty golden hued eyes turned on him and shining with a light that makes Lotor believe.  It makes him believe he can make a difference.

He’s too heartsore to speak, to tired to force his thoughts into any form of coherence.

“Do you remember doing this for me?” Matt asks. He’s working over the now exposed planes of Lotor’s shoulders with a new damp rag. The moisture it leaves behind on his skin makes him cold and a shudder ripples through him. Matt swipes over each coiled muscle gently, his eyes firmly on his task.  And Lotor watches him. He watches the way this soft human cares for him, as though maybe somewhere in his heart a small amount of affection still reigned.  As though Lotor hadn’t been the one to send him away and their last moments together before Voltron had found them hadn’t been so full of anger and pain.

“I do recall, yes,” Lotor answers. He remembers it clearly and the memory hurts. It will always hurt and even time hasn’t dulled it’s sharp edges. He wonders if it ever will and a part of him hopes it never does.

He spies the small twist of Matt’s lips at his answer. Matt takes away the soiled rag and pulls away the final parts of Lotor’s armour, until he’s naked on the edge of the bed, holding his side where the bruising is already blooming on his skin in dark, ugly clouds of deep violet. Matt frowns at the sight of them then pulls the sheet up over Lotor’s hips, helping Lotor to lie down. 

“I wish I could give you something for the pain, but I don’t know what the ship has-“

“I don’t require it,” Lotor says stiffly. And he doesn’t. He needs to experience the pain. He needs it to know he’s alive. To help fuel the determination in his mind to return the universe back to the golden age of before the rift had corrupted everything.

“Okay,” Matt says softly. He pauses by the bed, the hesitation in his feet tugs at Lotor. He’s about to leave, to leave Lotor alone and Lotor senses that this is his last chance. Matt won’t return to him again after this.  How could he? He’s a rebel on the front lines of the war, and he is the new Emperor they’ve sworn to destroy.

“I loved you,” Lotor says then. He doesn’t bother to hide the agony that hides at the back of his throat. “I still love you.”

“I know.”

“You understand?”

“Now I do. Before… I didn’t. I didn’t understand why you sent me away. But now I do.”

Somehow, know that Matt understood brings him a tiny measure of peace. In all the chaos and the violence and the long road ahead of him, knowing that gives him strength.

“What would the galra say if they knew their emperors heart belonged to a rebel,” Lotor muses hoarsely, so low under his breath he doubts Matt even heard him. He closes his eyes, knowing that Matt is about to leave.

He doesn’t. Not straight away.  Lotor feels the greedy hands of sleep pulling on him. He wishes Matt would stay but knows he won’t.

“I loved you too,” Matt says after a moment, echoing back Lotor’s words. His voice is raw, as though it’s taking all he can to force his voice to work.  “I still love you.”


End file.
